


Next To You

by samjsjlove



Series: Spring Break [3]
Category: CW Network RPF
Genre: Domestic Fluff, M/M, Post Mpreg, Sick Jared Padalecki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-08
Updated: 2014-03-08
Packaged: 2018-01-15 00:38:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1284727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samjsjlove/pseuds/samjsjlove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>About 3 months after they bring Evie home, Jared's struggling with looking after his daughter and staying on top of his school work with mid-terms right around the corner. Luckily Jensen's there to help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Next To You

At first, Jared doesn’t realize what’s woken him. His brain, fogged with sleep, soon kicks back into gear and he realizes that what him was the sound of his daughter’s cries from the next room. Jared supposes he should be used to being awoken in the middle of the night by now. After all, Evie has been home with them for nearly three months and Jared hasn’t had a single full night’s sleep the entire time.

 

Jared feels his fiancé stir next to him, getting ready to get up to see to Evie; it’s his turn. Jared sits up and rests his hand on Jensen’s bare chest, gently pushing back onto the bed. He murmurs a quiet, “I’ll get her,” and gets up and pads into Evie’s room.

 

They usually take it in turns to get up with Evie, but Jensen has a test tomorrow so Jared figures he’ll let him sleep so he doesn’t fall asleep half way through the test.

 

Jared pushes open the door to the nursery and goes over to the crib containing his crying daughter.

 

“Hey there, Baby Girl,” Jared says as he bends over the crib, running a finger down his daughter’s cheek, “You hungry?” His only reply is a watery wail so he gently picks Evie up and rests her head on his chest next to his heart. Evie quietens down, relaxing to the sound of Jared’s heart thumping next to her ear.

 

Jared carries Evie into the kitchen area to prepare her night-time bottle for her. He makes sure not to turn on any lights in the room as they are trying to get Evie settled into a routine and sleeping through the night. All the books say that they should keep the rooms dark and not to stimulate the baby too much so that she will get used to sleeping in the night. He grabs the bottle of formula that he made before going to bed from the fridge and puts it in the bottle warmer.

 

The main room in the apartment is open-planned. When you enter the apartment, you enter straight into the living room which opens up to the kitchen in the back corner of the room. While the bottle is warming, Jared makes the small distance to the couch and reclines on it with Evie lying on his chest. He soothing runs his hand down her back, trying to quiet her whimpering.

 

Pretty soon the bottle warmer lets out a quiet beeping noise to let Jared know that the bottle is done. He eases up off the couch to grab the bottle, shaking it and testing the temperature on his wrist before settling back down on the couch to feed Evie.

 

When she’s emptied the bottle, Jared rests her on his shoulder so that he can burp her.  Once she’s done she continues to snivel so, after determining that she’s dry, Jared lies down on the couch with Evie nuzzled against his chest and murmurs quietly in her ear to settle her down into sleep.

 

~*~

 

Jared startles awake when he feels his shoulder begin shaken. He sits up abruptly when he realizes that Evie is no longer lying on him. He looks up and sees Jensen smiling down at him, dressed with his bag over his shoulder, obviously ready to go.

 

“I’ve changed her and given her her morning bottle,” Jensen says gently, indicating over to where Evie is nestled in her bouncer and sucking on one of her toys.

 

Jared nods sleeping and asks, “Are you off then?” around a large yawn.

 

Jensen smiles indulgently and says, “Yeah, I think I manage to cram in an hour at the library before my test. You okay getting her off to daycare?”

 

“Yeah, yeah, ‘course.”

 

“I’ll see you later, ‘kay?”

 

“Mhmm,” Jared hums as he stands up, stretching, from the couch. He puts his arms round Jensen’s shoulders in a hug and when he pulls back Jensen presses a kiss to his lips.

 

“Have a good day, babe,” Jensen says as he leaves the apartment.

 

Jared checks on Evie, making sure she’s strapped securely into her bouncer, before taking a quick shower, brushing his teeth and throwing on some clothes. He grabs up his school bag and Evie’s diaper back and then bends down to pick Evie up from out of her bouncer.

 

Jared waits until he’s out of the apartment building to unfold the stroller and then settles Evie into it, fastening the buckle, before making the quick stroll to the UTSA campus.

 

UTSA has a daycare service for the students and faculty and students only have to pay half the tuition for the daycare so he and Jensen decided that it would be cheaper for them to leave Evie in the University daycare while they’re at classes rather than hiring a nanny.

 

Jared hugs Evie close to him and presses a kiss to her temple when he leaves her at the daycare. He’s been doing it for two months now but it never gets easier to leave her.

 

From the daycare, his first class is only a five minute walk and he gets there just as the last of the students are filing in. Jared looks around the lecture theatre and sees Sandy sitting about half way up, her bag on the chair next to her, reserving the seat for Jared. Apart from being so close to his parents, that’s been the biggest perk of transferring to UTSA. He was the only one from his group of high school friends to go to Austin so now that he’s back in San Antonio he’s going to college with Chad and Sandy. His oldest friends have been nothing but supportive of him and his relationship with Jensen and they’ve always been willing to babysit, especially Sandy.

 

Jared slumps down into the seat Sandy has saved for him just as the Professor stands up at the head of the room to start the class. This class is one of his core classes and he doesn’t find it particularly interesting. He leans back in his chair as the professor drones on and feels his eyelids get heavier and start to droop from his lack of sleep the night before.

 

He feels Sandy elbow him in his side and he jerks awake to see that everyone is getting up to leave.

 

“Shit! I fell asleep, didn’t I?” Jared asks, not really needing to hear the answer.

 

“Yeah,” Sandy says with an understanding smile. “Don’t worry; I’m pretty sure nobody else noticed. And you didn’t snore or anything.” Jared nods, relieved. “I made a bunch of notes. You can borrow them and write them up or photocopy them or whatever.”

 

Jared smiles at his friends gratefully. “What would I do without you?”

 

Sandy seems to ponder the question, her head tilting to the side and says simply, “Fail.”

 

Jared barks out a laugh. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

 

He’s still feeling pretty wiped so he decides to skip his afternoon class, another boring core class, shooting off a quick text to one of his friend in the class, asking him to grab him some notes.

 

Jared gets a text back saying, _yeah, whatever_ , just as he enters the building where the daycare is housed. He smiles at the girl in charge of the day care and goes over to the baby area where Evie lying on a play mat, batting at the toys dangling above her head.

 

“Hi, baby!” Jared exclaims with a big smile on his face. He can’t help but smile every time he sees his little baby. He picks Evie up from the floor being careful to support her little head. He blows a raspberry on her belly and revels in the tiny giggle it elicits from his girl. “You ready to go home? I think we’re ready to go home.”

 

When he gets home, Jared makes sure that he texts Jensen to tell him that he’s picked Evie up from daycare. Jensen’s classes finish earlier today so Jensen usually picks Evie up and takes her home.

 

Not five minutes after he’s sent the text he gets a reply asking, _everything okay?_ Jared smiles, seeing the concern in those two words.

 

_Yeah. Not in the mood for science so I skipped_ , he texts back. He knows Jensen will give him hell for skipping class but he doesn’t really care at the moment.

 

Jared settles down and plays with Evie until Jensen gets about 2 hours later.

 

“Hey, babe,” Jensen says when he walks through the door, going over to where Jared is sitting on the floor with Evie, bending down and giving Jared a kiss. “You have a good day?” Jensen asks, sitting down next to his daughter, picking up one of her toys and waving it in front of her, letting her grab it.

 

“Not so bad.” Jared decides not to tell Jensen that he fell asleep in his morning class. He knows Jensen’s going to give him shit about skipping class, and he’s getting a headache and he really doesn’t want to hear it so he doesn’t want Jensen giving him extra hassle about falling asleep in class.

 

“What about this afternoon? After all the hard work you put into your schooling you know you can’t just skip class.”

 

Jared sighs. “Yeah, I know. But science just isn’t my thing. You know that. I was hoping I could just persuade you into tutoring me when it comes to finals,” Jared says, waggling is eyebrows.

 

Despite himself, Jensen smirks. “What d’you have in mind?”

 

“I’m sure I can I think of something,” says Jared seductively.

 

“Okay fine,” Jensen gives in. “You got a lot of work to do? I can look after Evie and get dinner sorted while you get some work done.”

 

Jared thinks about the class he slept through that morning and the work he has to do to catch up. “Yeah, yeah. That’s probably a good idea.”

 

He gets up from the floor, grabs is backpack and makes his way over to the dining area which is used more as an office area. Jared powers up his laptop and takes out the notes that Sandy had lent him. He might as well get them typed up so he can give them back to Sandy tomorrow.

 

Jared finds his concentration somewhat lagging as he reads over Sandy’s small, neat hand-writing. Usually he’d try to put the notes in his own way, but he finds himself just copying them word for word without taking in a single bit of the information.

 

“Dinner’s up,” Jensen interrupts him and hour or so later.

 

Jared looks up to see Jensen standing by the table with two plates looking expectantly at Jared. He looks at the notes and his books scattered across the surface and scrambles to get everything collected up so that Jensen can put the plates down. Jared looks around the room and spots Evie nearby secured into her bouncer. She seems perfectly content playing with the toys attached to the bouncer while her daddies have dinner.

 

“Looks good,” Jared says looking down at his plate. It’s nothing fancy, just spaghetti and meatballs, but Jared knows that Jensen isn’t really one for cooking so he always appreciates it when he does. And the food is always edible which is a definite plus.

 

While they eat they talk about their respective days, Jared asking Jensen about how his test went, and talking about what they have going the next day.

 

After dinner, they put Evie to bed together like they always do and then sit together on the sofa, Jared curled into Jensen's side.

 

“You got any more work you need to get done?” Jensen asks, his lips close to Jared’s temple.

 

Jared didn’t manage to get much done before dinner. He did, however, finish copying up the notes so he can at least them back to Sandy the next day. He has other work that he really should get to but he’d much rather spend the evening curled up on the sofa with his fiancé. “Not really. Nothing for tomorrow, at least.”

 

Jensen hums next to Jared’s ear. “Wanna watch a movie?”

 

At Jared’s affirmative response, Jensen extracts himself from Jared and gets up to peruse their DVD collection. In the end they settle on watching _‘Batman Begins’_ and Jensen goes back to sit on the couch, wrapping his arms around Jared and pressing a kiss to the top of his head as he snuggles close.

 

~*~

 

When Evie wakes that night, Jared starts getting up when he’s stopped by Jensen.

 

“You got her the last two nights. I got her; just go back to sleep.”

 

Jared nods and lies back against his pillow, kissing Jensen back when he leans in before getting up to see to Evie. He listens as Jensen goes into the next room; can hear him murmuring to Evie through the baby monitor. Jared can make out Jensen walking into the kitchen to get Evie’s bottle.

 

Twenty minutes later, Jensen’s sliding back into bed.

 

“She all settled?” Jared asks waiting until Jensen’s fully settled before resting his head against his chest.

 

“Mhmm,” Jensen mumbles, obviously already half asleep.

 

It’s not long before Jared can hear Jensen’s deep breathing, signifying that he’s in deep slumber once more. Jared tries to get back to sleep but after another half hour he figures it’s a lost cause and decides to get up to do that homework he had passed over earlier.

 

~*~

 

The next morning, Jared changes and feeds Evie and gets ready for his early morning class. Just before he leaves he wakes Jensen so that he can watch over Evie, leaving Jensen with a parting kiss.

 

They have a pretty solid routine with their classes and looking after Evie. Jared rushes home after his class and as soon as he’s in the door, Jensen’s leaving to get to his class, passing Jared with a kiss and a, “see you later, babe.”

 

Jared had managed to acquire the notes to the class he had missed the day before while he was on campus so now he needs to get caught up in the class.

 

Evie seems to have other ideas though and refuses to settle. Jared thinks he lucked out with Evie; she’s normally a pretty quiet baby and it’s easy to calm her down when she’s fussing. She doesn’t seem to want to cooperate today and won’t let Jared work on the assignment that he missed.

 

In the end, Jared has to try to keep Evie occupied with one hand while he’s trying to get his assignment done with the other.

 

When Jensen comes home a few hours later, Jared’s barely scratched the surface on the assignment.

 

“How’s it goin’?” Jensen asks, a look of concern clouding his face when he sees how frazzled Jared looks.

 

“She’s not settling. And I really need to get this assignment done. And then I have to start this essay…”

 

“No problem.” Jensen picks Evie up and nuzzles her, kissing her head. “Have you been stopping Papa from doin’ any work?” The only answer he gets is a petulant whine. “Jay, why don’t you go on into our room to get a bit of quiet while you work and I’ll keep this little monster occupied.”

 

~*~

 

Jared awakes the next morning and soon realizes that he hadn’t been woken up by a crying baby in the middle of the night. He rubs the sleep out of his eyes, stretches and walks into the main room of the apartment looking for Jensen and Evie.

 

Jensen’s at the stove making eggs and bacon while he talks to Evie who settled close to him.

 

“I didn’t hear Evie last night,” Jared says as he goes over and kisses the top of Evie’s head, whispering, “Morning, sweetie,” as he does.

 

“Yeah, you were out cold. Didn’t even stir. I sorted her out. Was gonna bring you breakfast in bed,” Jensen says gesturing to the frying pan in front of him. “Hey, are you okay?”

 

Jared looks up in surprise at Jensen's concerned tone. “Yeah, I’m fine. Why?”

 

“You don’t look so good, is all.” Jensen walks over to Jared’s side and attempts to feel Jared’s forehead.

 

Jared pushes the hand away saying, “Seriously, Jen, I’m _fine_. Just musta been more tired‘en I thought.”

 

“Mhmm.” Jensen looks and sounds like he doesn’t believe a word Jared is saying. “We gonna take Evie to daycare together this morning?”

 

“Yeah. Gotta take a shower after breakfast and then we can head off.”

 

~*~

 

Jared and Jensen say goodbye outside the daycare center before heading in separate directions for their classes. Jared doesn’t miss the worried look Jensen shoots him before they part ways.

 

Jared manages to not sleep through his lecture and doesn’t miss the professor giving them date of their mid-terms the week after next. Jared can feel all the color draining from his face; he had completely forgotten that mid-terms were just around the corner. He’s usually a pretty good student, studying as he goes along so that he doesn’t need to do so much last minute cramming. This semester, however, he’s been so concerned about Evie and looking after her that he hasn’t been as worried with his schooling. Jared’s pretty pleased with his GPA and he has a horrible feeling that it’ll take quite a drop this semester unless he does some serious studying.

 

Seeing as both he and Jensen are on campus on Thursdays they tend to meet up and have lunch together. It’s one of the only truly alone times they get together without Evie seeing as she’s in daycare. Today though, with mid-terms looming over him, Jared cancels their standing date and forgoes lunch, instead heads to the library to get some much needed work done.

 

Jared likes to have his evenings fairly free. He tries to do his work before dinner, fitting in time to play with Evie, and once she’s asleep he hangs out with Jensen. They both have really busy lives at the moment between school and looking after their daughter, so Jared thinks it’s important that they have time to focus on them as a couple. It’s part of why their Thursday lunches are so important.

 

Tonight though, he hits the books as soon as Evie’s down and only goes to bed when he can barely keep his eyes open. Which just so happens to be right after Evie’s night-time feeding.

 

When he wakes in the morning he feels terrible. The day before he had been feeling progressively worse as the day went on and now he feels even worse still.

 

“You look like crap, Jay,” Jensen greets him, handing him a mug of coffee just as he likes it.

 

“Aww, you’re so sweet to me,” is the sarcastic reply.

 

“I’m serious. You really don’t look very well. And don’t give me any of that ‘I’m fine’ crap,” Jensen says as Jared opens his mouth to protest. “You don’t have any morning classes. Why don’t you just go back to bed?”

 

Jared huffs. “I can’t just spend all morning in bed! Mid-terms are in just over a week and I completely forgot about them! I’m gonna spend the morning in the library; try to salvage my GPA.”

 

Jensen tries to stop Jared as he goes to walk out the room but Jared just hands him the coffee mug and heads into the bathroom to get ready to go out.

 

~*~

 

Jensen’s finishing off an essay while Evie has her afternoon nap when he hears his phone ringing. He looks at the display and frowns when he sees that Sandy’s calling him.

 

“Yeah?”

 

_“Jensen!”_ Sandy sounds rather agitated.

 

“Sandy, what’s up? What’s wrong?”

 

_“It’s Jared.”_

 

At those two words Jensen feels his stomach drop. “What happened? Where is he? Is he okay?” He fires off the questions in quick succession while standing up and grabbing his wallet and Evie’s stroller getting ready to head out to wherever Jared is.

 

_“He’s okay. He fainted in class. We’re sitting outside McKinney and I’m getting him some water. He didn’t want me to call you.”_

 

“What? Why the hell not?!”

 

“ _I think he just didn’t want you to worry.”_

 

“He wasn’t looking too good this morning. I tried to get him to stay home but he just wouldn’t.”

 

_“Jared can be really stubborn. You can’t make him do something he doesn’t want to do.”_

“Tell me ‘bout it,” Jensen huffs out, all too aware of Jared’s stubborn streak. “You said you’re outside McKinney? I’m on my way.”

 

_“Okay, I’ll stay with him ‘til you get here. See you soon.”_

Jensen hangs up the phone and goes into the nursery knowing that Evie’s not going to be too happy about being woken up. He manages to transfer her to the stroller without jostling her too much so she stays blissfully asleep.

 

Jensen makes his way to campus as fast as he can pushing along a stroller with a sleeping baby in it. When he reaches McKinney, he sees Sandy sitting with Jared on a bench under one of the large trees starting to get its color back.

 

“Jared!”

 

Jared snaps his head up when he hears his name and then turns to Sandy. “You called him?!”

 

“You’re sick, Jared. Jensen needs to know. He’ll look after you,” Sandy says somewhat sheepishly.

 

“I don’t need looking after,” says Jared petulantly.

 

Jensen kneels down in front of Jared and runs his hand over Jared’s face, feeling the heat and pushing the hair from his eyes. “You wanna go home now?”

 

“No,” Jared says sulking like he already knows his answer won’t fly with Jensen.

 

“Tough. Come on, I’m taking you home. Don’t make me call your Mama. You know I will.”

 

At that, Jared knows that there’s no point in arguing. Jensen can be a bit of a mother hen at times but he’s nothing compared to his actual mother. He has no doubt that his mom would practically move in with them if she found out Jared’s sick.

 

Jensen smirks, knowing that he’s won. He thanks Sandy and then pulls Jared up from the bench and takes him home.

 

When they get back to the apartment, Jensen pushes Jared towards their bedroom with instructions to have a nap while he sorts out Evie who has woken up and needs sorting out.

 

While Jared’s napping, Jensen calls Sherri and asks her if she can watch Evie for the weekend. He doesn’t tell her that Jared’s not feeling very well; he knows Jared would kick his ass when he gets better if he did that. Jensen just tells Sherri that they’d like a weekend to themselves. It’s not overly unusual for Jared and Jensen to ask Jared’s parents to watch Evie for a night; they’ve never been without her for a whole weekend though. Jensen knows that Jared’s been stressing himself out lately and a couple uninterrupted nights and carefree days would really do him well, especially when he’s sick.

 

After he’s dropped Evie off at the Padalecki house, Jensen gets back to the apartment and crawls into bed next to Jared.

 

Jared stirs and slowly opens his eyes to look at Jensen.

 

“Hey, babe,” Jensen says softly. “Feelin’ any better?”

 

“Not really.”

 

“Well I think I know what you could do with. I dropped Evie off with your mom – don’t worry I didn’t tell her your sick – so we can have the weekend to ourselves. I don’t want you to even think about school or mid-terms. We’ll just have a chilled, relaxing weekend, get you feeling better again and then you can worry about mid-terms on Monday.”

 

“I can’t just not do any work this weekend. Then I’d only have a week before mid-terms and-” Jared is cut off from his rambling when Jensen leans in and silences him with a kiss.

 

“Jared. I know you. Even if you don’t do any work next week you’ll still do great on your mid-terms. You stress out over exams and then you ace them. And if you don’t do so great this time? You’re GPA isn’t going to nose-dive. And I know your professors will understand. You have a new-born at home after all.”

 

“But-”

 

“Jared. Just shut up and let me look after you,” Jensen says with a tone of finality.

 

Jared figures its best not to argue with that tone. And Jensen’s probably right. The University has been pretty good about Evie and his professors are really understanding. He could always ask for some extra-credit stuff if he doesn’t do as good as he likes.

 

Jared decides to just put it all out of his mind and enjoy his weekend with Jensen. He’ll make Jensen go get Evie in the morning – there’s no way he’s going the whole weekend without her. He’ll worry about that tomorrow though. For now he just snuggles into Jensen’s side and closes his eyes in sleep.


End file.
